A NATION CHALLENGED: THE MEDIA

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE MEDIA; Draping Newscasts With the Flag

By JIM RUTENBERG and BILL CARTER

Published: September 20, 2001

On the Fox News Channel Tuesday, the anchor Jon Scott told Wolfgang Ischinger, the German ambassador to the United States, ''We look forward to working with your country in wiping out these terrorists.''

Reporting from the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, the CNN financial news anchor Lou Dobbs said, ''This country is blessed with a very strong economy and the greatest democracy in the world.''

On ''Late Show With David Letterman'' on Tuesday the CBS anchor Dan Rather said, ''George Bush is the president, he makes the decisions, and, you know, as just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell me where.''

Coverage of crisis or war has always put the American media in an ambiguous position, raising the question: Should it be an unbiased broker of information or unapologetically patriotic in style and substance?

Empathy with victims is a staple of news coverage, but television has draped its coverage with the flag in the last week. In between presenting straightforward reports -- or even, like Mr. Rather, in interviews away from their news programs -- anchors and correspondents have not hesitated to conduct the postattack coverage primarily through the viewpoint of the United States. Use of the pronouns ''our'' and ''us'' have been commonplace.

CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC have incorporated screen images of American flags. And red, white and blue ribbons and flag pins have at times adorned the lapels of news anchors, like Brit Hume on the Fox News Channel -- often simulcast on the Fox broadcast network -- and Tim Russert of NBC.

Critics say that such actions undermine the anchors' position as disinterested conveyors of news and can intensify public opinion in a way that could help push America into a war footing.

The news broadcasters are clearly feeling the same pain from the attacks as the viewers are. In addition to the emotions the attacks aroused because of the sheer numbers of presumed dead, they also took place close to the offices of the news organizations in New York and Washington that are now on the front lines of the coverage, and this is influencing the situation, news executives said.

John Moody, a senior vice president at the Fox News Channel, said his network was doing the right thing in showing a waving American flag on its screen.

''I'd sure prefer that to a hammer and sickle, I'll tell you that,'' Mr. Moody said. ''I think that there's some patriotism on camera now, and I think inasmuch as TV news often reflects America's mood at any given moment, that's what it's doing now.''

Alex S. Jones, the director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, said the showing of some emotion now was understandable.

But, he said, as the government prepares for war, television news is going to have to be vigilant in maintaining a critical and analytic eye and not falling to boosterism, especially when it has to cover foreign governments that might not fall right in line with the United States.

''There may be differences of opinion,'' Mr. Jones said. ''And part of the responsibility of the media will be to not seem to adopt the style and the language and the sort of symbols of one particular group.''

Nonetheless, John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's Magazine, who wrote ''Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War'' (Hill & Wang, 1992), said the television networks already seemed to be ''preparing the nation for war'' without asking many tough questions of the administration.

And, he said, the news networks that are adorning their screens with the flag are sending ''signals to the viewers to some extent that the media are acting as an arm of the government, as opposed to an independent, objective purveyor of information, which is what we're supposed to be.''

But news executives said their staffs are seasoned and could manage to protect their coverage from their own feelings.

''We do feel connected to our audience, to the people of this country, to the people of New York and the people of Washington,'' said Sid Bedingfield, executive vice president of CNN. ''But we would never let that compromise our core journalistic mission, which is to report the news without bias.''

On ''Late Show,'' Mr. Rather struck a critical note about the government's intelligence efforts.

Still, Mr. Moody of Fox News said he was going to be careful not to let Fox play a role in which it would help drive public opinion toward war.

''I'm aware that there is a fine line,'' he said.

Then again, he added, it might not take the media to influence the public to support war. ''I don't think the American public needs to be hopped up right now,'' he said, adding that it already is.

Photo: Lou Dobbs of CNN called the United States ''the greatest democracy in the world.'' (Associated Press)